After watching Little Jia go on a few children rides and Wan Jia sneaking onto the roller coaster once when Lu Aotian wasn't looking, the three of them were tired and a little bored.
Just as they were about to get going, a staff approached them. Lu Aotian looked too scary so she talked to Wan Jia instead. "Ma'am, have you tried our latest game? It's called pick up a toy." she gave her an invitation and explained to her the rules of the game.
The game was to be played by three people. It was mainly aimed at entertaining children but it was more like a family game.
There were many stuffed animals, toy cars, female porcelain dolls and superhero toys at four different stations. The cars were obviously for the boys, the dolls for girls while the stuffed animals and superheroes were unisex.
Both Wan Jia and Little Jia chose the stuffed toy station. The stuffed toys came in form of many animals: bears, pandas, koalas, monkeys, bunnies, kittens and many other animals.
Each one of them had a number stuck on it. The game lasted for five minutes.
As for the rules, the players of a team would sit at a table and in the presence of a dealer, they would each randomly pick a folded card with a hidden number. The three of them would decide which card(s) to continue with and the teammates who discard their card would pick a diferent one until the numbers on all the cards tally.
This was a fairly difficult game and it depended purely on luck. If in five minutes they didn't manage to get identical numbers, then they would lose.
During the whole two hours that they played, Lu Aotian's group didn't manage to win even a single little toy. However, this was not because they had particularly bad luck. It was simply because Lu Aotian's little lovers both had eyes for two different bunnies and wouldn't accept each other's number. Apparently, they were the toy versions of a popular and very rare animated sidekick bunny called Eli. Since they had the same origin and form, they were identical with only the number as the difference.
Lu Aotian was amazed at how childish these two could get. If they decided on one number first, wouldn't they have a higher chance of winning? They could even possibly win both. But Little Jia stuck to her number 6 and Wan Jia too refused to let go of her number 14. At the end of the day, they lost even without trying hard.
The mother and daughter pair left the game station looking sulky and dejected as if they had just been rejected by their mutual love Lu Aotian.
"It's getting late. Let's go home." he urged them. They both kept looking back at their beloved bunnies like teenage girls being separated from their first love.
In the car, neither of them even glanced once at the desserts they had fawned over excitedly and convinced Lu Aotian to buy them.
"Princesses, don't be too sad. Next time we'll play all day and try to win your beloved bunnies, okay?"
They sulked even more and ignored him. Lu Aotian sighed. Wasn't it supposed to be a happy day?
"The both of you must be tired. Wash up and come down for dinner, okay?" he kissed their foreheads. Little Jia frowned. He kissed Mommy first. This inhumane world!
.....
An hour later.
"Ahhhhh!! a squeel was heard from Wan Jia's room.
Seconds later, the same squeel in a sharper and more deafening tone emananted from Little Jia's room.
"Eli! It's Eli!" Little Jia screamed as she hugged and kissed the little bunny toy from a gift box she had just opened.
Wan Jia's squeel was for the same reason. She had just dressed up and opened the gift box she had found on her dressing table when she left the bathroom. Who would have thought that the bunny she almost cried over would appear in her room? In fact it was the exact one. It even had the number tag on. How did Lu Aotian get it?
Actually, he couldn't bear to see them so sad. He had just told one of the staff casually that his wife and daughter love the bunnies earlier when they threw a tantrum refusing to leave.
At the same time he made a mental note to find similar stuffed bunnies for them.
Who would have thought that the owners would want to curry favour with him so much as to call him later and ask if he wanted the toys? They even offered to wrap them up as gifts and have them delivered to his house. Naturally he wouldn't care that these people were intentionally sucking up to him. As long as his princesses stopped sulking.
Having recieved the best gift they could ever ask for, the mother and daughter were now happy.
Soon, the two of them emerged from their rooms holding their bunnies like the most treasured possession.
"Thank you daddy"
"Thank you Aotian"
They almost competed to thank him.
"Are you coming to neat now, or are you going to eat your 'Eli's?"
"Nope. No toys at the dining table." he sternly reprimanded the pair who still had their bunnies in their hands as they made way to the dining table.
The instant he said that, they both looked sad again.
Even sadder was Lu Aotian. Just like that, he had gained two love rivals?